There is a particular kind of grief that comes not from losing a person, but from losing a version of yourself — and for me, that was the end of my college years.

College was more than late-night study sessions and campus coffee shops. It was the last stretch of life where everything felt simultaneously uncertain and full of infinite possibility. I was surrounded by people my age, all fumbling beautifully through the same questions: Who am I? What do I want? Where does this road go?

There was a comforting magic in that shared uncertainty.

When graduation came, it arrived with balloons, photographs, and proud smiles — but also with a quiet, hollow ache. The dining halls, the dorm hallways, the impromptu midnight conversations — all of it dissolved almost overnight. Suddenly, everyone scattered to different cities, different careers, different lives.

Saying goodbye to that chapter felt like closing a book before you were ready for the story to end.

What made it hardest wasn’t the change itself, but the realization that nothing would ever feel quite that free again.

And yet — every beautiful chapter must close for the next one to begin.